SecretCode said:
Sorry to butt into someone else's thread, but why are signal tests charged for? If the signal's bad it's not the (prospective) client's fault is it?
My area shows as a very low reception area for mywireless and I don't want to fork out R150 to have this confirmed. I will just ignore mywireless.
Hiya ..actually, your question is less a "buttinski" than a natural evolution of this thread, seeing as someone else DID bring up the question of charging.
But to answer you: very simply, you're paying for the someone's (hopefully! -there seems to be an alarmingly loose interpretation of this!) professional, i.e. work, time to do something for a result that you've agreed to: and to fend off THAT question, having been told about the price beforehand and accepting it, you are agreeing to pay for a service.
I'm guessing you're okay with the idea of paying for a technician to fix something: typically this would be for getting a computer fixed, but there are many fields of endeavour this applies to. THEN we get to the fact that the kit we (yes: I, too, am in the MyWireless biz, tho' mostly I do HGA work) carry costs money- my laptop, modem, antennas (I have (too damn) many: different ranges from towers mean using an appropriately sized) unit are tools that are expected to work to make a return on investment. In THIS we're no different than, say, a mechanic.
As to your last statement: being as it's your hard earned money, you're entirely entitled to be as hard-headed as you feel like about how you want to spend it, hell I'm *right* next to you on that one, brother! Only I have to point out that this is a remarkably head-in-the-sand approach: let's say that MyWireless really could work for you- ignoring it on the basis of not wanting to spend what, in the long term, amounts to a pretty trivial amount of money (just see how far R150 gets you in the grocery bag stakes next time you're food shopping) in the long term.
Sure, it MAY turn out to be a dead end- but you'd *know* ..and be properly informed and could move on to finding the next less ideal alternative. But it *could* also turn out to work really damn well, if properly done.
So it boils down to value: getting a meaningful return on your money. My suggestion is not to simply blow off the option, but to ASK what you'd get for spending your cash: if they can't give you a satisfactory answer, they have no right to your money.
HTH
-bdt